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Writing tips

What are metaphor families, and how do they bring your writing to life?
One of my favourite writing tips for distinctive narration and dialogue.
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Mata Haggis-Burridge
'The suspension of disbelief' versus 'the budget of believability'
Why some stories lose their readers.
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Mata Haggis-Burridge
5
Writing exercise: create a short story in five sentences!
Tried and tested approach to fun storytelling.
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Mata Haggis-Burridge
1
What can we learn from the foreshadowing in Jaws?
How all the pieces are put in place, but the ending still delights us.
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Mata Haggis-Burridge
6
Post-mortem: Empty Influence
Yo, yo, yo! Don't forget to smash that subscribe button and ring that bell as we dive into the writing techniques used in last week's short story.
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Mata Haggis-Burridge
Writing exercise: take a story and flip it (or 'Is Trump a tool for Satan?*')
*of course Trump isn't. Satan isn't real.
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Mata Haggis-Burridge
4
Writing tips: loose ends and endings
How much do you need to tie up at the end of a story?
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Mata Haggis-Burridge
Post-mortem: writing Accommodating Mr Landown
What choices did I make while writing this short horror story?
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Mata Haggis-Burridge
2
Writing tips: Freud's idea of the uncanny and why it helps horror writers
Typed for you by a severed hand.
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Mata Haggis-Burridge
Post-mortem: The Ocean Turns
Examining the writing techniques in last week's tiny horror story
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Mata Haggis-Burridge
Writing exercise: modernising a classic
An exercise in rewriting Wuthering Heights into a modern style, and how this helps you find your own voice.
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Mata Haggis-Burridge
Writing tips: the simplest plot structure for short stories
A reliable three-beat plot structure for short stories, which might just be damned good fun to write and read.
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Mata Haggis-Burridge
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